A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/23351353
"Cars aren't a symbol of freedom. They are a symbol of dependence in places designed to be prisons without them."
Paraphrased from a book I read (sorry, it was 10+ years ago)
Might also be noted that cars are a class symbol and a means of engaging in conspicuous consumption.
People who make the most noise about the "freedom" a car affords them are very often people who flout their vehicles a exotic hobbies or luxuries. They are, incidentally, the same folks who denounce bike lanes, bus stops, cross-walks, speed cameras, and parking shortages. Almost as though they don't value freedom in the abstract at all.
This doesn't make any sense. The only way to move around without depending on other companies is by walking, and there's no way that can replace cars, trains, buses, bicycles, etc.
Not depending on anyone else is not a sensible goal. We live in a society.
The only way to move around without depending on other companies is by walking, and there’s no way that can replace cars, trains, buses, bicycles, etc.
If you have all of those options available, you can never be stranded when one of those options fails.
But with a car-centric society, all it takes is a single point of failure, and you are no longer free to move about the society.
They are not advocating for society to be less interdependent. They are explaining that a car-centric society has less freedom of movement, because the "independence" of a car is a lie.
Well that's just nonsense. There are enough downsides to cars without having to make up fringe lunacy like this.
Nonsense and fringe lunacy... like asking for multiple options when it comes to transportation? Recognizing that building redundancies into our infrastructure is actually more efficient than relying on a one-size-fits-all solution?
A car breaking down can completely derail an individual's day. A truck breaking down on a highway can derail a city's day. The less the person or city needs cars to function, the less likely they are to be stuck when something goes wrong.
like asking for multiple options when it comes to transportation
No, like trying to say that cars don't give you independence because they need insurance and servicing. That's simply not the kind of independence people are talking about.
It's like saying metro systems aren't convenient because they are really difficult to build. It's confusing two different things.
A car breaking down can completely derail an individual’s day.
So? You know what can also derail your day?
That’s simply not the kind of independence people are talking about.
Yes it is. People praise the car as the ultimate freedom because they imagine that they can take that car anywhere. But the moment they have a problem with their car, they literally can't go anywhere.
Everyone has a story about how their car didn't start, or about the mechanic that didn't actually fix the problem, or how they're still waiting on a part and can't fix it until tomorrow. Plenty of people are stuck waiting on the roadside for hours waiting for a tow. Plenty of people are stuck waiting for days to hear back from their insurance company on if repairs are covered or who will pay for it or which mechanic is allowed to do the work.
So? You know what can also derail your day?
Do you... think that's a gotcha? How many times has your train derailed? Is this a common problem in your life? Don't you hate it when your employee doesn't show up to work all the time because his train derailed?
It's so ridiculously uncommon that it may as well be a rounding error compared to car accidents and incidents.
Yes it is. People praise the car as the ultimate freedom because they imagine that they can take that car anywhere.
They can!
But the moment they have a problem with their car, they literally can’t go anywhere.
Nobody is under the illusion that cars never break! Come on dude. Trains and buses are hardly infallible either!
Everyone has a story about how their car didn’t start, or about the mechanic that didn’t actually fix the problem, or how they’re still waiting on a part and can’t fix it until tomorrow.
Everyone has 10 stories about trains being cancelled or buses not showing up. That's life. Completely irrelevant to the fact that cars give you independence.
How many times has your train derailed? Is this a common problem in your life?
Obviously I was not talking about actually derailment. That was obvious to anyone not being deliberately stupid. Trains are delayed or cancelled all the time. Much more frequently than cars break down.
It's becoming clear that you live somewhere where there are no trains or buses so you have no actual experience of them and imagine them to be perfect.
Me, 15 miles from town, independently waiting for the bus to arrive (it's a hour long ride, and only comes twice a week):
I grew up with great public transit, and having access to a bicycle, (NYC.) In my 20s I realized that attempting to own and maintain a car would be so expensive that I would not be able to save money for the future. I ride my bike everywhere. If I want to go somewhere more than 50 miles away, or where transit doesn't go, I rent a car. I rent a car maybe 2x a year tops. Depending on how long I'm renting the car I probably spend $400 a year on rentals + insurance. My last bike I had for 20 years. Cost me $1400 brand new, spread that cost out over 20 years, owning the bike cost me $70 a year. It was easy to repair myself, and the tools to repair it were inexpensive to purchase. Fuck cars indeed.
...i have slight beef with that.
We didn't make cars more complicated because "of the electronics" or "because we had to".
Car companies make cars more complicated because they make huge amounts of money from warranties, maintenance that you can't do yourself for some reason, and of course the leases.
Cars being as complicated and impossible to work on as they are today is because line must go up. Everything else is propaganda.
maintenance that you can’t do yourself for some reason
Also helps hide shoddy low quality parts.
The condensers on 2017-2021 Honda Civics are basically guaranteed to fail. There’s a warranty, but the only people who can open up the AC are the dealerships, who have been trained to find some speck of dust to justify denying the warranty.
It really fucking sucks - I’d love the option of being able to make some money on doordash, but the “reliable” Honda Civic I bought gets up to 100+ F with the air on full blast.
That's...effectively what they said. The added electronics make it infeasible for normal people to maintain their own vehicles. They never speculated on why the electronics were added.
The way you came at them makes it seem like they're provided a scapegoat when they didn't.
Edit: I regret stepping into an arena against a pedant with an axe to grind.
But "electronics" don't mean "impossible to repair yourself". And to be clear, I'm not expecting someone to become a shade tree mechanic. Remember, "right to repair" also includes the ability to go to a 3rd party repair service.
But requiring your mechanic to buy $15k+ in licensing per year, making specialized (and proprietary) fasteners, taking months to get replacement parts to the mechanic, or not honoring warranty because you went out of network are not things that are intrinsic with an electronic system.
Sure wish I lived in a walkable city though 😢
Cheap cars are more dangerous. Simpler cars have higher emissions. I think the more complex ones are better. I would like to see legislation against the anti repair methods manufacturers use
With cars less needed other transit methods get built for popular trips
Failing all that, hire a car the few times of year you want an out of town holiday would be cheaper even than a very cheap car
I envy you for your walkable city. I don't think I did better by getting a thousand square metre block and a detached house. I'd like to see our cities made walkable and the outer suburbs connected by rail so no one needs a car. I'd like to see cars banned from the city centre except working vehicles, taxis, disabled people, tourists with a hotel in town. For long trips off the transit network one would take a train to a car hire depot out of the city and drive from there. Hopefully cars will be sufficiently smart that the fact the drivers will have little practices will be mitigated
But I cannot help but wonder if a line of simple, less advanced ICE cars promoted on their ease of maintenance wouldn’t get popular with, for example, rural folks. After all, being able to fix the beast yourself would lover your costs a lot
No car company will make a car which is maintainable by a common man because it affects their bottom line. We can dream of alternate concepts (open-source car design/metal 3D printing) but government regulations and lobbying will kill such concepts. We have to focus on the current scenario.
But if I wanted to hit the relatively nearby lake or beach, getting there by foot is another story
The majority of the anti-car people are not saying "destroy all cars. Nobody should have cars". We are just saying "please don't make our entire lives car-dependent. Please design cities/governments/social life in such a way so that it's accessible to non-car folks."
I also have a car, but I only use it for going to places which are not reachable by public transport. For traveling to work, I use public transport 5 days a week. Cars should be (IMO) a recreational mode of transport.
Author also forgot that these companies won’t fail, because these are not “one and only” of each in the world
I agree with you; they won't fail. However, they surely can make our lives hell if they want to. This is a power that I don't want them to have over me.
Thank you for wording it so eloquently.
I learned quickly the car took away my freedom. I needed a car to get a job.
I was suddenly forced to have a job to pay an auto loan. By the time I paid the loan I needed a new car as the first broke down.
Then I needed my job to pay for the 2nd car. If I lived closer to the city with public transport I likely would have never gotten a car in the first place.
Cars are basically a life tax
Also, people younger than the legal age for driving are unable to get around safely and independently if they live somewhere car-dependent. I know this from personal experience (although where I live car dependency is not the only problem of course)
@callyral @grue don't forget disabled people. Cars are always touted as the solution for disability but there are *many* disabilities which completely remove driving as a possibility (blindness, epilepsy, many learning disabilities, many physical disabilities ... And generally being elderly, if we're honest) and car dependence leaves you entirely reliant on a chauffeur of some kind for any and every time you want to leave the house.
Look I am for an efficient mass transit system instead of building all of these perpetually-under-construction-roads. I would happily pay for bus / train tickets to get to work! It would be like a raise not being forced to pay for all that crap illustrated in the comic. I keep seeing comics like this on my front page and it's kind of annoying. It's somehow MY fault I choose to drive a vehicle instead peddling a bike on a path that would be a suicide mission to get to work. How about voting in the local elections instead of cheeky little comics that just seem annoy people? Lots of plans for transit systems get killed at the voting booths nobody goes to. Or not. I don't care. I'm just screaming at the sky now.
I fail to see how this comic blames people driving cars for the problem. Just that we should strive to improve how we build our society so that we could have meaningful and good lives without requiring an automobile.
Isn't anyone else disturbed by the concept of independence being a problem for this person?
I'd like more public transportation in America, but I'm not really interested in anything else they have to say.
The concept of independence can be a problem because it tends to manifest in a "I'm a lone ranger that doesn't need anyone" mentality.
If you're someone who generally just wants to live alone off-grid in a cabin in the woods and interact with people once a year that's fine.
If you're massively dependent on your neighbors and international trade and are in a self-destructive anger spiral about it because the realities of living in society damage your sense of self-worth, which has been tied to the fiction that everyone is an island, it's an issue.
@moakley @grue Unless you're living in a forest that's nowhere near another human being, hunting and gathering all of your own food, moving around entirely on foot (or on animals you personally captured and trained), wearing clothing you made from materials you personally gathered from the environment around you, YOU ARE NOT INDEPENDENT. Even the smallest rural settlement has interdependence as a fundamental requirement.
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@moakley @grue Car drivers depend on a whole bunch of things, as noted above. But farmers do too. They rely on people making tools, and in the case of motorized ones, supplying fuel and maintenance for them. They rely on markets to sell the products of their efforts to permit them to exchange with other people for other necessities like clothing or food other than the food they themselves produce. Etc. etc. etc. Everybody depends on everybody else in a society.
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